A site where a man with far too much interest in beer gets to write about it.

Saturday, 3 February 2018

CAMRA: the next generation

As CAMRA'sRevitalisation Project finally grinds towards its conclusion I must confess I find it hard to generate much interest in the whole thing. Fortunately my favourite nephew Tom is full of youthful enthusiasm and has been paying close attention so I was able to get the low down from him.

Awesome Lamborghinis #LOL

He has long been a craft beer enthusiast and was delighted to see Brewdog burst onto the beer scene. "Real ale had become stuck in a rut" he said. "The innovation of the craft beer scene has made this a far more exciting time to be a beer drinker than when bitter or mild were the only beers you'd find. It's high time CAMRA acknowledged this and accepted that modern craft beers are quality drinks, whatever their dispense methods".

He does however, still think Real Ale is something worth defending and has no problem with it being seen as the pinnacle of the brewer's art. "Strong beers with high hop rates can hide a lot of faults that would be obvious in weaker, more balanced beers. Similarly it's been said that with pilsners there's nowhere to hide, but making a lightly flavoured lager that's filtered, pumped full of extraneous CO2 and served at close to freezing temperature is more a technical challenge than anything else. Making a cask ale at less than 4% ABV that's packed full of flavour and gets better with each pint shows real art."

So it's a thumbs up for the revitalisation proposals from Tom and I'd like to thank him for his considered insight into it.

4 comments:

Cask ale has its own virtues independent of 4% beer with taste. It just does. Those with the requisite experience understand it. (Not to take away from anyone's enthusiasm here; all views are valid and I merely state my own).

There will always be some cask beer available, and a lobby that survives albeit in altered form to promote it is a salutary thing.

I find it very very strange when brewers insist there’s no difference between the same beer in keg and cask when surely they ought to know better than anyone else how much of an effect different levels of carbonation can have on the same beer.